Targetting bluegills

[buz23]

When I target perch I drill lots of holes until I see fish on the sonar, or maybe just spend a minute or so jigging before I move on.

I am not sure this is the best strategy for gills, they don't seem to school like perch, so maybe more patience is required.  My auger was having trouble this weekend so I spent an unusual amount of time on one hole (for me at least) in shallow water.  Every now and then a fish would show up, but the action was slow compared to perch fishing (good perch fishing that is).

Is this normal for gills?  Do you sit and wait (assuming you are in a reasonable location) or move move move until you find them???

[trapper2000]

just like perch if your in holes and not getting fish move 

[fullThrottle]

Gills can be very fussy. Normally the slower smaller baits work best. Thiny jigs with grubs. I never had luck with plastics. They school just like perch. Shallow in the early ice. Then move to basins late ice. Looks for weed lines in the early season. They are bug eaters so they like mug and weeds ! Big ones will eat minnows but they have to be fired up and big.  Little flys work also.

[BillyGoat]

All lakes are different , move , find healthy weeds is key. Waxworms are best for gills . Small 3 to 5mm .

[trapper2000]

bluegills are my favorite

[IcefisherSteve]

If in area with bluegill just make small moves around. Yesterday the blue Gil bite was finicky for us. So I tried different techniques. Tried different colors and  I was jigging very aggressive in middle of water column even when I wasn't marking anything..then marks would eventually appear and I would slow it down. Once they made slow approach I started to pull jig away slowly as they got closer. That caused them to be more aggressive instead of just sitting there staring at it.
 We made many moves around but each move wasn't very far. Literally 15-25' each time. Tried to get in pockets of weeds. Or in light weeds. Makes it harder to read flasher but you can jig right above the weeds and they usually will come up out of them. Some holes were dead for a little but then would turn on. I will give a hole a solid 20 min at least before moving. And move won't be that far.

[IcefisherSteve]

They school just like perch. Shallow in the early ice. Then move to basins late ice.

Maybe it's different for other lakes but I mainly target bluegill and pumpkin seeds and tend to catch them in 7-9' water during early and late ice on the particular body of water I fish.  Only difference late ice I starting catching crappie too with them in shallow. They don't seem to change depths. Always hanging around weeds.

[hot tuna]

The lake we target them,  its about 14' depth range. They seem to stay in the basin during winter and cruise in schools.
If I can see bottom,  I catch nothing.
They come and go fast and furious typically liking smaller teardrop jigs or fly jigs tipped with a spike.
Every once in awhile the baitfish come out of the weed edge and then the crappie pounce on them chasing the gills out.
We rarely catch small gills.

[IcefisherSteve]

Nice hot tuna. Pigster Gil for sure. We get few slammers like that but a lot averaging 9". Big pumpkin seeds too

[chessieman]

I fish Saratoga almost exclusively for bluegills. Since retiring 5 years ago, I started patterning their movements early, mid, late season and found them to be very predictable - this year I fished 3 spots/holes - "A" 10 FoW, from 1st ice to mid-Jan, "B" 13 FoW, mid-Jan to mid-Feb and "C" 6 FoW, mid-Feb to now - I basically fished the same hole in each spot for the entire period - I don't limit everyday, but I limit most of them - needless to say a GPS is vital, as is 2# Fluoro.

You have to be patient and learn what they like on each day - slow or aggressive jigging, bottom bouncing or suspended, color is VERY important up until 10 days ago I had been using a yellow/blue tear-drop with 2 spikes - then they switched, totally ignoring it, hitting only an orange/black Marmooska and size - nothing bigger than a size 10.

The last few days, the afternoon bite has been from 3:45 - 4:30 - and even then there were a couple days were the "lookers" drove me crazy - if you find a spot, sit on it.

[IcefisherSteve]

Do you guys notice a lot of color differences between blue Gil's..sometimes they are bluish purple. Sometimes browner. Sometimes defined stripes. Hybrids? Or just the habitat they live in.

[Pequod1]

I do see a big range of colors and if you notice, bluegills will change colors right after you catch them and put them on the ice. They even seem to change once they are home sitting in my sink waiting for the knife.  I agree with everything said about catching them. If you find a hot hole, stay there, they roam around very short distances and will come back. Towards that magic afternoon time, they are more likely to just stay underneath you. Just got to find that perfect hole.